Wednesday, December 20, 2017

Insane conspiracy theory? No, actually not. History shows that tyrants, bullies and rich oligarchs do pay fake protesters, because they don't give a shit about ethics, they only care about power at any cost.

But, you know, even if that's "just libtard conspiracy bullshit," this is good advice. If any assholes at any protest do start trouble, then the overworked, wanna-use-our-military-hardware cops will know exactly who needs to be fucked over, instead of arresting innocent people.

Among other things, that means the criminal types go GOP, and the "not a criminal" types go DNC.

Are both parties backed by the ultra wealthy elitists? Duh, yes. The ultra-wealthy elitists are opportunists who will buy any politician they can. But the most buyable, and most corrupt, have gone GOP today.

As long as the GOP exists, "both parties are the same" remains a lie that apathists and cynics tell themselves to justify their apathy and cynicism.

Monday, December 11, 2017

Because, you know I've got a grrl crush on Lzzy Hale. She's got an amazing voice. And Hell, this song is a mega classic. I mean, Lita Ford still has a powerful voice that has lasted all these years since the did the original with Ozzy.

It's cool to see performers in front of a live audience. They've got a different vibe in concert than they do in scripted vids.

Wednesday, November 29, 2017

The DNC leadership fucked up, big time, during #Electiongeddon2016 - no question about that.

The DNC is a ratbag of anyone not very nearly literally a fascist. That is a huge spectrum from "right of center" to "way far left of left," which means the DNC can't muster a common message.

Unlike, say, the GOP, which demands lockstep behavior, often amounting to whatever Fox News says that week, which makes them look more coherent. They also sell the lie that the DNC are "out of touch with Americans."

Well, duh, because your California liberal Democrats value different things than your Kansas Democrats, but the GOP always have the same message across the spectrum, and that same message is always a pile of shit, because that message is a total pile of false promises, in every state.

At the end of the day, the DNC aren't "losing" to the GOP, despite the problems of the DNC leadership - the problem is that an self-indulgent, happy-to-be-ignorant public keeps buying the bald-faced lies, false promises, and naked racism and bigotry of the GOP.

Being groped is wrong, but right now is NOT the time to distract the already easily overloaded average idiot. Remember, the average idiot is 1) confused about everything, 2) always ready to say "See, I knew it was all overblown! I can now go back to ignoring women who complain about sexual harassment!"

Look, ladies, I totally sympathize with you. I really do. I've had my butt grabbed more times than I can remember, but get some perspective, and choose your time more wisely - this is not the right moment to complain about creepy men - we're still fighting for credibility against being raped! I know you're struggling with this, but you have to wait, because right now YOU'RE MAKING THINGS WORSE.

(And, yes, I know I risk having my "good libtard" card revoked for this. Fuck that; I'm in this for the long game, and sometimes ethics just has to queue up and wait until the right time.)

Wednesday, November 15, 2017

I agree and disagree with Ms Dietz. She has a specific and focused point, but misses the bigger picture that the massive cultural shift required for Spacey's career to have been destroyed so quickly, first required that all those women pave the way for it to have happened.

Without Weinstein going down in flames, Spacey's accuser would have been dismissed and ignored (as other men were in years past). Instead, the brave women who came forward with their stories of how Cosby, Trump and Weinstein perpetrated sexual misconduct, made it possible for Spacey's accuser to be taken seriously, and for the response that happened.

Ms Dietz makes a totally valid point that in 2017, the word of men is still treated more seriously than the word of women. However, it is also extremely important to recognize the successful and massive cultural shift made possible by the women who came before him.

Friday, November 3, 2017

Mariëlle Sylvia Altink - A Singing Paladin

Background & Origin: She was a minstrel, with a natural talent for remembering songs and music, before her conversion of faith.

She was working as a minstrel at a popular carnival town. A high-level adventuring party came through. They had just lost a companion, and were drowning their sorrows in drink. An angel appeared at the table, and called the company by name - “the company that numbers eight shall go forth and do this quest!” By random dumb luck, she was sitting and chatting with them, and suddenly found herself part of the legendary group, and magically enthralled into a quest!

The adventuring group knew they were stuck with her, and she was stuck with them, so they made the best of it and trained her up right away into her new career. She has a lot of energy and was a fast study.

Combat Tactics: The crossbow is for sniping when there is time to prepare. Otherwise, she carries javelins for either a quick thrust, or a quick throw. Once the target is close enough, she hits people with her greataxe.

Her core powers make her a bit of a rallying point for her allies. She stays to the front, with the mainline damage dealers, as frontline tank and healer.

She treats her primary role as frontline support, and her favorite combat spell is bless, since her and her allies get a huge boost for relatively minor resource consumption (allies within 10 feet of her, and under a bless effect, gain +4+1d4 bonus on every saving throw).

Personality Traits: At heart, she is a philosopher and entertainer, but she got caught up in something bigger than herself, and has embraced it. If nothing else, it let’s her collect new songs and music she would never have encountered before.

Appearance: 5’ 5” and a muscular build. Her hair is auburn-red.

Powers: She is a half-elf paladin with a natural talent for learning and remembering songs and music.

2) your hated enemy has won, because he has dragged you down to his troglodyte level;

3) your enemy has won, because - in his mind - you have just validated everything he ever projected onto you, and he's going to entrench even more into his stupidity and congratulate himself on being right about you, even though he never has been up until the moment you made a death threat.

Tuesday, October 31, 2017

Life would be so much easier if people just took more responsibility for making their message clear.

In any conversation, there are two people. One person is trying to convey information, and the other is supposed to be trying to receive it.

A lot of people use a few words, and then get pissy when the other person doesn't understand. That's a simple case of "use more words" - the speaker has a responsibility to say enough to make information transfer happen. The speaker has a responsibility to not get pissy when the recipient can't read his, or her, or FYU, mind.

The more common point of communication conflict is that the recipient isn't actually listening. This is a common joke, which isn't actually funny, that "People just stand around waiting for their turn to talk." When someone isn't actually paying attention to what is being said, there is no communication. People pick fights with the noise in their heads, and take it out on the people around them.

This is another common point of communication conflict. If someone asks a question, usually that person is looking for information. However, I know people who "ask questions" as a way of expressing their anger and frustration. They're not really looking for information, they're just pushing the blame onto their target. For example, "Didn't it ever occur to you that was so stupid!" isn't really looking for information, it's saying "I think that was really stupid," without bothering to own the emotion itself.

To clarify, if I think you did something stupid, then that's just it - *I* own the thought that you did something stupid. The appropriate way for me to express that is to say "I think you did something stupid." The "passive aggressive" way for me to express it is to say "Didn't it ever occur to you that was so stupid!" - I'm pushing the blame for the thought in my head onto you. Which, when you think about it, is kind of a shitty thing to do.

So, to recap,

As speaker, you have to use enough words to pass along enough information that your recipient can understand what you are trying to say;

As information recipient, you have to actually be paying attention and putting effort into understanding what the speaker is trying to convey. You can't just sit around waiting for your turn to talk;

If you ask a question, put some thought into it, to make sure you 1) get the information you are looking for, 2) aren't just being a "passive aggressive" jerk.

(Finally, go ahead, be a smartass and pretend you don't understand anything I've written. Oh, ha ha. I'm going to ignore obvious taunts and trolls - I just don't have the energy for games right now. If you really want clarification, just say so. Thanks.)

This post is about how much human selfishness and stupidity annoys me.

(And for the slow thinkers in the room, I'll spell this out now, before someone tries to make hay where there isn't any. Sexual assault is wrong. Sexually assaulting minors is absolutely wrong. Hell had a special place for anyone who preys on children. This blog post isn't about sexual assault. I certainly don't forgive the act of harming a minor, and being drunk makes it worse, not better.)

Friday, October 27, 2017

Background & Origin: She had a hard youth, being yanked from her home by social services, then running away to the Big City in her early teens, after getting fed up being bounced around foster homes. Her superstrength emerged shortly before she ran away - feeling that sense of power gave her the idea she could survive. She managed to survive, falling in with organized crime as an enforcer and aid women in positions of control.

She has the following siblings:

A younger half-sister that she still keeps in touch with, but they're not particularly close. Her sister doesn't know she is now a supervillain;

A younger sister that she has lost touch with. Every once in a while, she makes noises about finding this sister, but hasn't put any real effort into it.

She has experienced the following important events:

She found that she has an older sister that you never knew she had;

She fell in love and thought about marriage;

She made a friend, a surrogate parent who offers advice, perhaps too much advice. They are an important figure both locally and beyond the immediate area;

Her relationship choices were sub-par, and she found yourself two-timing a steady partner. They found out and broke up;

An incapacitating accident left her laid up for several months;

She was involved in several casual relationships, each lasting a month or more, but none become serious

Combat Tactics: Generally, she just punches people, because it is effective. She has no problem using her “death ray vision” on especially dangerous foes, or even just to make a point about how powerful and badass she is.

Personality Traits: inspirational, courageous, adventurous,

Appearance: She favors steampunk fashion, dark and comfortable. She wears her hair long and flowing.

Powers: She has superhuman strength and endurance. She can generate an unrevealed energy as beams from her eyes that is lethal to all life forms and damaging even to non-organic material.

She carries a steel shield that she calls her “Steam Shield.”

Notes: Model unknown. Character by I.A. Riley, August, 2017.

The powers were all random, but I decided I wanted her to have a ranged attack, and then I just went a bit mods happy with the Death Touch.

Wednesday, October 25, 2017

This is an exact example of the curse of 'ideals'. Ideals put thinking in a box, only what's inside the box is acceptable. That eventually collides with rationality. Unfortunately, rationality is only partial at best, emotions drive the human mind and emotions create ideals.

The idea of guns as a pillar of freedom is exactly wrong.

A man carrying a weapon for 'protection' isn't free, only scared, otherwise he wouldn't feel the need for protection. Fear is not freedom.

Guns are not protection, particularly considering the number of accidents and suicides. Most trained cops miss targets more than they hit, and that from six feet or less. The average paper popping citizen is more of a menace than a source of protection.

Imagine, if you will, that all the people at the concert in Vegas had been armed. How would that have changed what the shooter did? It wouldn't, those poor people didn't even know where the shots were coming from.

That's why strict regulation is required, because people constantly do things not in their own best interest and certainly not in the best interests of society. If people were remotely rational they wouldn't get so fat, fail tests, take harmful drugs, drive too fast, smoke, gamble, but they do. You can't get most people to make a sensible trip to the dentist once a year.

Since rational self interest is an oxymoron, society has to have rules in place that penalize irrationality. In the case of America, the society is too sick to grasp that their delusional 'ideal' of freedom is killing them.

Monday, October 23, 2017

I'm torn which amuse me more - the audience reactions, or the performers themselves. It's always funny to see how people react to a heavy metal song (in this case, Rammstein) played on classical instruments.

I think the video shows a splice of multiple performances, possibly some of them with an audience. I think the audience segments are probably also spliced from different performances.

Wednesday, October 18, 2017

To all those people convinced the media are just making up stories about Trump. Or taking his own tweets and showing them to people. Or running video of Trump actually doing things. Showing Trump looking like a buffoon, or acting incompetent, or even just NOT BEING PRESIDENTIAL.

Does it really not occur to people that maybe Trump really is just a bad person?

I mean, does it really hurt to admit that maybe supporting him was a mistake, and that grown ups change their minds when they realize they did something stupid - like support a bad person screwimg up the most important job in the world on a daily basis?

Why can't he just be an actual bad person? Why is it so much more believable that millions of people are just being mean to him, rather than he's an actual incompetent self-absorbed jerk - like his own actions suggest every damn day?

So, guess what? The measles vaccine was developed around 1954, and by 1963 - almost ten years of testing - declared safe and effective enough licensed in the United States. This wasn't "rushed to market to make money." This was tested, refined and prepared in order to stop kids from dying.

Here is a chart showing DEATHS from the disease. Notice that Outbreaks plummets after the vaccine is introduced, and that deaths drops to nearly zero.

For the slow thinkers in the room, that means - because of vaccinations - kids stopped dying.

Now, we come back around to "Hey, I'm afraid of vaccines!" and suddenly, a disease that had been thought eliminated, explodes into the population again.

Because, you know, "Vaccines are dangerous!"

And where are kids getting sick? Hm...

Funny how this works. Cut back on vaccinations against measles, and get measles outbreaks. Gosh, it's almost as if the vaccines do actually protect people from infectious diseases. You know, like they actually work? Imagine that.

Tuesday, October 17, 2017

We have to crack down hard on violence as political theater. We've seen close up what happens when people start taking sides on that issue and making excuses for one side or the other. Assault is assault. I don't give a damn who's doing it. Just like vandalism is vandalism, arson is arson, and making deadly threats is olaga hot.

Friday, October 13, 2017

As I said last week, I've always considered Darth Vader to be kind of an asshole and special snowflake bully. But, you know, Vader does has style oozing out his helmeted ears, so no surprise some people come up with some really amazing cosplay.

Okay, so you're little girl is adapting an iconic major badass into a costume. I can dig that. Girls need badass role models. I still prefer Wonder Woman to Vader, but the kid rocks it, and I applaud her.

Tuesday, October 10, 2017

Just so we're clear, if you find yourself in a conversation about Harvey Weinstein and some tool is making hay that the "Democrats are Evil," because Weinstein is a sexual predator, then here are some responses:

So you agree that sexual assault is wrong, and therefore you agree that GOP President Donald Trump, former Fox News Chief Roger Ailes, and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas are all fucking scumbags, because they have a history of sexual depredation against women. Good, so, that means "Republicans are Evil," right? Especially, since one of those sexual predators is the fucking President and another is a Supreme Court Justice.

If it's a "Yeah, but Weinstein!" scenario, the remind them that "Yeah, but..." means the speaker is normalizing and justifying the behavior. The response to "Yeah, but.." is "So, you're saying you're okay with sexual harassment? That's kind of shitty of you."There is NO "Yeah, but..." when it comes to sexual predators. It's only "Yes, you're right. President 'grab her by the pussy' Trump was just as wrong as Harvey Weinstein!"

Friday, October 6, 2017

Personally, I always thought Darth Vader was kind of an asshole. Sure, he has some major badass style, but I mean, "You've disappointed me for the last time!" (Choke, choke, choke) - what kind of weaksauce idiot manager does that? That's so not going to retain quality talent. Duh.

And, seriously, how much of a special snowflake do you really have to be to bully people who disagree with you? "I find your lack of faith disturbing," so "I'll choke you and frighten everyone in the room into seeing how big and badass scary I am, because I'm such a snowflake I need people to be afraid of me, all the time!"

Wednesday, October 4, 2017

Tell me what you think, but I've always found face and neck tattoos very distracting. As a rule, it seems to me, they are so prominent that when someone looks at you, they see mostly tattoo. The idea like your face becomes an accessory to the artwork, rather than the other way around. That's my thought, anyway.

As others have pointed out, neck/throat tattoos can be especially problematic to your future employment options. Tattoos are pretty common these days, and we have a local Target store where I tease the employees that tattoos must be a job requirement :) Some have prominent tattoos, others only the one or two, but almost all of them seem to have some.

One of the Target cashiers, a woman about 20, was telling me how she was going to cover her tattoos when she went to med school. It wasn't about her art, it is just that med school people are still pretty reserved and "old fashion" about tattoos, and she knew some students and faculty would get distracted just because she had ink.

Also, large pieces of evocative artwork - such as a skull or Jesus, for example - might make a prospective employer - even one tattoo-friendly - think twice about how customers might react to it, and might pass you over for someone less decorated.

Monday, October 2, 2017

This got passed to me, but the author got stripped off. It's one of those thinfs I wish I had written.

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The NFL players are people expressing their Constitutional rights of free speech. Their private corporate employers can fire them, or not, since doing so is not a violation of the First Amendment. In contrast, the President of the United States speaking to squelch their First Amendment rights, and - again - using inflammatory language to do so, skirts the issue - again - of violating the Constitution, and - again - diminishes the Oval Office.

The root problem is inequality in America. The root problem is the rich and powerful exploiting the government of the people, by the people, for the people to oppress and abuse the people, rather than to serve the people.

In classic Orwellian fashion, the rich and powerful have again exploited the media machine to manipulate the people into some stupid argument about who is a "real patriot," and so we bicker and swagger about "who's a good boy" (or girl, or non-binary gender identifier), instead of being smart and recognizing the root problem: that billionaires are yanking our chains, like dogs, to get us to fight with each other, while they steal our money and our rights, and call us ungrateful slobs for not thanking them.

Meanwhile, the flag is a symbol that gets misused daily, and the National anthem is a song that most people can barely sing only when someone plays it for them. The idea that "real patriots" kow-tow to a government that most of them bitch and whine is "too invasive," and "out to get them," is insane.http://taskandpurpose.com/flag-code-explainer-trump-nfl-national-anthem/

Sunday, October 1, 2017

Mocking the Meme here. This is important, that you understand I'm mocking the meme.

It always amazes me the self-absorbed, self-important mindset required to whine about protests against people whose core belief is "Those darkies ain't human! Jews should be burned to death! They ain't people! Only us special white snowflakes are people with rights!"

"Anti-Anti-Fascists" Really? So, you're saying you support Nazis and Fascists? That's nice. You life hating asshole.

#PunchANazi

And, by the way, "free speech" is most usually legally defined as "government officials cannot stop you from expression whatever the fuck you want."

That is very different than "people who disgaree with you can also exercise their rights to tell you to shut the fuck up."

That is not the same as "censorship," or "repression," in the way people always scream it is (that is, screaming "My rights I'd free speech are repressed! Whine whine!"). On the contrary, it is often the very essence of "free market capitalism" at work.